Cold, socks and treasures.

Haven't been well this week, Thomas ever so kindly shared his cold with me. I had to take yesterday and today off work. The down time has given me time to complete my father's birthday present in time for his birthday, I made a pair of socks out of my homespun wool/silk blend. I am so pleased with how they have turned out and with the fact that I have completed the pair and didn't have to resort to giving him one sock and a promise to complete the other as I feared. It didn't help that I only decided to do them last Sunday when I finished spinning. They were completed at midnight, apart from the grafting on one toe so I've been able to spend a lazy day tucked in bed today trying to get over this cold.

The housework has, for the most part, been neglected, I'll have to get stuck into it on the weekend.

I'll dress myself up warmly later on to take the socks over to Dad, he is having a BBQ tonight for his birthday. I'll not stay, just long enough to wish him Happy Birthday from a distance and maybe scrounge a plate of food so I don't need to prepare any and mess my kitchen up even more.

I was gifted with about 300 giftbags this week, they carry a chocolate suppliers name on them and are a nice burgandy colour, will be useful for Christmas if I glue an image, perhaps old Christmas cards over the name. My husband found them at work, they were tossing them out and had already thrown a box or two out. He knew I could get great use out of them for personal use and with Girls' Brigade. They have no idea how they ended up at an Aged Care facility. He also came across another box that had my name on it at one of the facilities, it was filled with sewing items that another worker had put aside for me. The box was filled with wonderful vintage sewing threads on wooden spools, original thread boxes, vintage chocolate box (empty), zippers, a wooden cigar box full of buttons and old pattern drafting books. To me it was like a treasure chest, my daughter wanted to dig in to the box but I wouldn't let her, it was my treasure and I had first dibs. I am thinking of making a shadow box to hold all of the threads to hang on my wall.

Home made washing liquid.

I just made my first batch of laundry liquid up, thanks to Rhonda Jean's recipes. It was fairly easy, I had bought the soap for it a while back and it had hardened, grating was a pain, I'm thinking that I might soften the cake overnight in water next time. Yep that's the laziness coming out in me.

It's now cooling on the sink in it's storage container, I pilfered the kid's snack container out of the pantry - they don't need snacks do they?

I thought my normal washing liquid was great value for money, it's an enviormentally friendly one that I get for about $2 a litre, in the supermarket it's always on the highest shelf. Last time I bought 10 bottles on sale for $1.50. I'm down to the second last bottle. It works out to 33 washes per bottle, which I thought was really good for the price, according to Rhonda the cost of the homemade is around $2 - works out to be 80 washes for that. Pretty chuffed with that. I've just put a load in, not even waiting for the mix to cool - why yes I am impatient ;). Have to see how the wash turns out.

Gather around the kitchen table

Took some items to the local Salvation Army store today, while I was there I saw a perfect table to use as my sewing table, it was wooden and had a single drawer in the side. Much smaller than my old ugly table, there were 2 of them and I chose the best one. Had it tied to the top of my car and handed over $10 for it. Got it home, Dad and I carried it into my dining room. I took a look in my sewing room and thought that I might be able to get 2 of them in so went back to the store and paid another $10.

The only place the second one wouldn't be in the way was to put it in the middle of the kitchen floor, when I saw it in place I decided that is where it will stay. I've always wanted a kitchen table, had told David recently and he said that at the moment there was no way we could afford one. HEH HEH, at the time I knew I would prove him wrong.

This afternoon after school, my son and I sat at it with buns and fruit, enjoying a snack and having a laugh together, the sort of things that memories are made of.

I sneakily took off the $10 price tags leaving the original $25 tag on and when David got home I showed him my great buy. He thought it a great buy and then I told him I bought 2, he said he hoped that I got a discount for buying in "bulk". He was shocked when I told him how much I paid. I got him to put wheels on the kitchen one right away. I'm going to put a child lock on the drawer and use it to store my knives, to get them out of my cutlery drawers.

I wrote that on Thursday and it's now Saturday evening, I just had my first baking session on the table, made Cheesy Basil Damper. I got the recipe out of a new kids cookbook I bought, but I didn't have some of the ingredients so decided to wing it. For one thing I didn't have buttermilk so made my own using made up powdered milk with 1 tablespoon lemon juice per cup of milk. Leave for 10 to 15 minutes before using. The recipe also called for basil pesto, I had a tube of prepared basil which worked well.

It's now Wednesday, I hadn't gotten around to posting this yet.

Last night we were teaching the girls at Girls' Brigade to cook using fresh and packaged ingredients. I was in charge of the fresh so chose corn on the cob and Chicken Burritos from the Woman's Weekly Kids_Cooking_for_Health cookbook I got it for under $23 from Big W. They were a hit apart from one girl who didn't like it much (can't please everybody) but at least she ate it all.

The book has some wonderful recipes in it and I recommend it to anyone. I really like kid's cookbooks as the recipes aren't complicated and are really good for anyone wanting to learn how to cook. I tell my friends who are just starting out to try them. I know this one will get some good use here.

And an update on the table, David mentioned that I would soon be sick of having to go around it all the time - duh that's why I wanted wheels on it. It's been getting a lot of use, our kitchen is quite wide with a lot of space between the bench and stove, the table is with in easy reach of the stove. No longer will I have to run a hot dish across the room yelling "hot, hot, hot!" in an effort to get people out of my way. All of my cooking preparations have been made on it, the groceries get put on it for easy reach of putting away in the pantry and fridge. And if it is in the way it just gets wheeled away.

Eating fake food under plastic trees

As the words to the song Living in the 70's by the iconic Aussie group Skyhooks go. Over 30 years later what has changed? We are eating more and more "plastic" food, instead of wholesome homecooked foods. I am guilty of it as well, taking pasta sauce from a jar, adding meat and calling it a homecooked meal, I need to find a recipe that DH will like - he is really fussy. I did sneak some pureed carrots into the last batch, he didn't pick it but said it wasn't as nice as our normal brand.

About 2 years ago I made the decision to change my diet, firstly by giving up red meat, tea, coffee and caffienated soft drinks. The meat, tea and coffee were relatively easy, I made it through a weeks worth of massive withdrawal headaches. I know tea is much touted for it's anti-oxidant capabilities but I knew I had to go cold turkey for a while at least, we could drink 8 - 10 mugs a day. I swapped it for plain hot water and have found it just as comforting as a cup of tea. I now have the odd cup of tea, can probably count the cups I have had on 2 hands over the past 2 years, coffee on 1 hand, 3 fingers to be exact. Soft drinks have been harder, I am having less of them, some weeks none, some weeks 1 or cans, I am determined to cut them completely.

I have made the decision to add more organic vegies into my diet and have been reading up on them. It shocked me to read from a farmer who supplied fruit to Woolworth's here in Australia, that they have very stringent conditions that they set on their fruit and vegies that includes the dipping of the fruit into a fungicide to give the fruit a longer shelf life - so much for being the "fresh food people". Here is a link to a newstory Woolies the worm in plastic fruit, guess where I won't be shopping anymore, I'll be either growing my own, buying from markets or directly from the growers.

Not only satisfied with going organic, I will be adding more raw foods to my diet. I am starting tonight with Chilli con Calabacín, actually it will be Chilli con cacao, I'll be adding the cacao that she mentions was in the original recipe. I bought Cacao from the festival yesterday. Cacao is where chocolate comes from, it's the raw state, I've not tried it before it will be an new experience for me.

I also bought some tea from the festival from Tea Tonic, I chose the Berry Green tea, it's delicious. It's not decaf so I am wary of being hooked again. The tea is expensive but the lady selling it said to just use a small teaspoonful, that it can be used several times, just to add a tiny pinch of dry tea to the used. I used the same teaspoonful 3 times last night and still got a flavourful tea. I know 3 cups of tea isn't being wary but I was in the soccer canteen right next to a fridge full of Coke and this kept me away from them.